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In what might be the biggest undergraduate hackathon in the world, three woman hackers came out on top with a music transcriber at yesterday’s PennApps Fall 2012. The Penn undergrads — Ana Mei, Jocelin Lee and Angela Yu — won the $4,000 first prize, which also includes a trip to Google NYC to demo their […]

The Penn undergrads — Ana Mei, Jocelin Lee and Angela Yu — won the $4,000 first prize, which also includes a trip to Google NYC to demo their project and an automatic entry into the Facebook college hackathon finals. The team demoed their tool, J.A.M. (Java Auto Music), to an awed crowd. One team member played a simple riff on the saxophone, and like magic, the sheet music transcription appeared on the screen.

The semi-annual event, launched in 2009 and completely organized by students, had its biggest jump in attendance between hackathons, according to graph shown by Venmo cofounder Andrew Kortina, a Penn alum. Venmo has been a repeat sponsor of PennApps.

One team presents its robot bartender.

Attendance doubled since PennApps Spring 2012 with 320 hackers attending from as far as Montreal and California. There was also a large University of Michigan showing, with many presenters yelling “Go Blue!” after they finished. Co-organizer Pulak Mittal, a Penns sophomore, said turnout “far exceeded expectations,” as the organizers expected 200-250 hackers to show up.

The hackathon had more than 40 sponsors, including big names like Andreessen Horowitz, the New York Times and Facebook and awarded more than $12,000 in prizes.

Mittal said those numbers might make PennApps the biggest undergraduate hackathon in the world.

Top non-Penn team (the top three prizes go to Penn teams): PayTango, a fingerprint payment system

Lore’s Most Ingenious Award: Snap Site, which creates a sleek website for your company with only one click

Best Use of SendGrid API: Emailr, which turns your inbox into a social network

Venmo’s Dead Simple Award: It’s a Date, which uses social media to help you figure out what to do on a date. It probably also helped that the team added that they wanted to include a functionality that allowed you to Venmo your date for half the bill if you didn’t particularly like him or her.

10Gen’s Easy to Use Award: Notable, a tool to take better class notes.

10Gen’s Best use of MongoDB Award: PayTango, a fingerprint payment system

Best Use of Filepicker.io: Alchemy, which analyzes your documents to create a wiki game

Yahoo’s Best Mobile App Award: Perimeter, which can control household devices

Best Use of Mashery API: Just Ask For It, which aggregates all kinds of media

Zynga’s Award for Bay Area Favorite: Batt Signal, which tells you when your friends’ cell phone batteries are running low

Bain Capital Ventures’ Award for Most Delicious UI: Facebook for Grandma, which optimizes the social network for all Grandma’s desires